Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Barton sifts through 15 years of delectable anecdotes--moving through her career from wide-eyed English teacher to literary Japanese translator--in this inventive debut. Structured in short vignettes that relate to onomatopoetic sounds from the Japanese alphabet, she makes palpable the overwhelming and exhilarating experience (what she refers to as "sensory bombardment") of being immersed in an unfamiliar language and culture. Shortly after she arrives in Japan at age 21, moja-moja, "the sound of electric hair," becomes the adjective her students use to describe her curly mane. Koro-koro--"the sound your teeny little identity makes as it goes spinning across the floor"--is used to articulate the "existential crises" Barton encounters while translating, and to explode the fallacy that there is one single "correct translation" for every word ("the definition of what constitutes translational perfection is always going to vary depending on whom you ask"). In a tone that's contemplative and playful, she ruminates on the works of Barthes, Wittgenstein, and Anne Carson, among others, to offer thought-provoking insights into literary translation as "a form of activism" and refuge: as Barthes writes, "the murmuring mass of unknown language constitutes a delicious protection." Filled with linguistic surprises and a quiet intellect, this is sure to delight language learners and literary readers alike. (Mar.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In her debut work, Barton presents a candid blend of memoir and exploration of linguistics. After completing her undergraduate degree in philosophy, Barton accepted a position teaching English in Japan without having previously studied Japanese language or culture. She ended up living in Japan for most of her adult life and eventually became a literary Japanese/English translator based in England. Here she describes her experiences navigating two languages through vignette-like chapters, each based on a Japanese mimetic, or sound-symbolic vocabulary, "where the beating heat of Japanese lies," Barton writes. For instance, "koro-koro," the sound of an object rolling, lends itself to an exploration of how Barton's perception of the world seems to change depending on which language she's speaking and how she sees herself and her place in the world. Throughout the memoir, Barton lays bare her difficulties and triumphs--both personal and professional--with unflinching honesty and self-deprecating humor. VERDICT The philosophical explorations of linguistics may be esoteric for some readers, but many can relate to Barton's journey of finding her place in the world. Readers who are fascinated by the art of translation or stories about living between cultures will find much to unpack here.--Anitra Gates
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Japanese translator recalls her complicated relationship with the language through some of its slippery locutions. Barton's sharp, belletristic debut is a culture-shock story that cannily avoids the conventions of the genre. A Brit who first arrived on the Japanese island of Sado to teach English, she was often thrown by the culture's conventionality (its particular forms of address) and outrageousness (its outsize consumption of pornography). Refreshingly, the author doesn't follow the typical fish-out-of-water arc from embarrassment to assimilation. For one thing, the structure is episodic, filtering experiences through "mimetic" Japanese words that aren't necessarily onomatopoeic but still convey a mood through their sound. For example, kyuki-kyuki evokes the sound of a marker on a whiteboard, and jara-jara is "the jingle-jangle that seems to get into your blood and stir it up so that sleep is the last thing on your mind." Barton attaches each chapter to a particular sound as she chronicles failed relationships, homesickness, despair, brief blissful moments of connection, and, in an especially powerful chapter, a hiking trip and coming across a man who had hanged himself. Her experiences speak to the book's other main distinction: Though Barton gains fluency in the language, she rarely feels anything like comfort within the language or its society. Some of that is acute awareness of her standing as a Westerner with a more independent streak. "A key part of being in Japan is that gradually, without realizing, the state of being unlike others comes to seem more and more repellent to you on a subcutaneous level," she writes. But she's also philosophically fascinated with the relationship between language and identity (she has a few thoughtful and self-deprecating riffs on Wittgenstein) and consistently looks at her experiences in Japan with candid uncertainty. A refreshingly honest and novel look at the nuance and revelatory power of language. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
